Evening on the Ground
by Startide Risen
Summary: Every generation has its war.  Ben Reynolds asks his folks to understand.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** They're all Whedon's.

**Author's Note:** My family has turned out a long line of Army, Navy, and Coast Guard servicemen, the most recent of whom is my favorite cousin. I'm as far from military myself as one can get without being Gandhi. I suppose I wanted to understand.

**Evening on the Ground**

_by S. Risen_

"Ben. What are you doing awake?"

"Gonna send me to bed, Mom?" Ben says, teasing. He's perched on the kitchen counter, a bar of real chocolate in his hand. Candy is precious, but no one begrudges him the little indulgences these days.

"You look like you could use a little sleep, honey," Inara says gently. She comes to stand next to him, musses his wild bangs.

"Mom." But for once he doesn't flatten them back down again.

Inara takes a moment just to look at him, to lay claim to the shape of his eyes, the delicacy of his cheekbones, and the twist of his black curls. The rest of his face belongs to Mal, down to the electric blue stare and the wryest mouth in the 'verse. Tonight of all nights she needs to commit him to memory.

"Mom?" His slightly panicky expression cuts short her musings. She realizes her eyes are welling up--hence the panic.

"Sorry, sweetie. I was only thinking."

He says, "What about?" even though he'd really rather avoid all this sentiment. She just called him sweetie. If Dad were here, there'd be no tears and no hair-mussing. They'd pull down some whiskey, get good and sloshed, and make fun of each other all night.

Wait, no, they wouldn't. Ben remembers belatedly that he and Dad aren't on speaking terms right now.

"Your father is proud of you, Ben," Inara says. She is no reader, and her life as a Companion is a quarter century behind her, but she remains a very intuitive woman.

"That why he called me a stupid hotheaded _hun dan_ and offered to shoot me himself?"

Inara pauses to consider. "Yes."

Ben glares. "Does it get tiresome, Mom? Constantly translating from Dad to Sane People?"

She smiles with just one side of her mouth. "Sometimes it does. Mostly I'm used to it."

"Crazy old--"

"Ben." And suddenly Inara looks old. People rarely think of her that way; never mind the lines fanning from the corners of her eyes or the silver shooting through her black hair. But at the moment she's dark Mother Earth, timeless and stately with years. "You know your father fought in the Unification War."

"Yes, I know."

"That he spent eighty-two days in Serenity Valley with the Independents."

"Zoe's told me the stories, Mom," Ben says gently. "Poison gas and heat-seekers and strafers and exploding fruit. None of it changes my decision."

She almost wants to cry again at that, but he's already plenty uncomfortable. "I've long since resigned myself to the fact that the men in my life are immovably stubborn and impervious to reason. I'm not trying to change your mind."

This comes as something of a shock to the boy who's had his perspicacity, intelligence, and motives assaulted numerous times in the last week. "Then what are you trying to do?"

"No one wants to see you hurt or killed on some distant battlefield," Inara begins, diplomatic. Perhaps this is roundabout, but she doesn't know how else to say it. "But your father's worried about something different. Zoe once told me that... that Malcolm Reynolds really did die in Serenity Valley, that no one ever saw him again. It was a whole other man who surrendered to the Alliance. I met him long after, but... Well, honey, he doesn't want that for you."

Ben is quiet and still under the sodden weight of this version of the venerable family history. It is always bizarre to be confronted with the haunting mortality of his unbreakable father. It is unthinkable that Mom has no ulterior motive in telling him all of this. "You're sure this isn't part of your campaign to keep me here?"

"Quite sure. I just want you to understand... before you go."

"Understand Dad? Pffft."

"You're scaring the hell out of him, Ben," Inara says, a little wry. "There's no wrong in it; you're a man grown and free to join any army you like. Just don't leave angry."

Maybe she brushes her hand down his cheek before she slips away in a whisper of cotton nightgown. Perhaps it's her unruly hair swinging behind her. It might be nothing at all. Ben doesn't know, because he's got his eyes closed. He'll open them when she's gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Ben finds him in darkness on the front porch swing, Mom's Christmas present a few years back. Dad made it himself. Man of many talents.

One of which is an impenetrable and frightening stoneface. Ben is near to quaking in his black combat booties.

The rainstorm hissing all around them is a hot one, and the wind, warm and humid as breath, is playing at the hem of Ben's untucked shirt. Mom hates weather like this. It makes her hair poofy, and Dad laughs at her attempts to tame it.

Right now he's got a bottle of brandy on his knee, fingers curled around its neck. Approachable, but tetchy. His right arm is taking up as much space on the swing back as he can make it.

Ben stands stiff against the porch railing and lets the storm blow curls out of his eyes.

"You gotten any smarter since we last spoke?" Dad says conversationally.

"No way in hell," Ben says. It's a beautiful start.

"Then I dunno what you're doing out here. I think I made myself clear."

"Think so. The part where you kicked a door in stands out in particularly shiny detail."

"Mighta been a bit perturbed at my son's sudden case of brainless suicidal heroics."

Ben's got a snappy comeback, it's right there on the tip of his tongue—but he reins it in. "I didn't come out here to have another go," he says. "I came to talk."

"I said my bit."

"Yeah, I heard. Now I'm sayin' mine." Mom would know how to phrase this so that nothing else winds up broken (someone's arm, for instance). Ben's plan is just to muddle along and hope his mouth somehow spits out what he means. He tries empathy. Empathy's good, right? "I know you had a hard war."

It's the wrong opening line, all wrong. He can tell by the world of trouble in the expression his Dad turns up at him now. "You know, do you?"

But Ben doesn't have it in him to be angry anymore. He slumps against the railing and says: "I ain't joinin' the same army you fought. I'm joinin' up with my homeworld's division, not any spit-and-polish bunch of dandified Core officers. It's different."

"Son, where do the gorramn orders come from, do you think?"

"From Governor Davis and our own ruttin' generals, Dad. I'd be fighting for Persephone."

"You'd be fighting for whatever Parliament told you to fight for."

"Dad," Ben says, exasperated. "I'm not gonna change my mind."

Dad laughs mirthlessly, then lets out a long, long breath. That throws Ben a bit, as does the way his father suddenly leans his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. He looks bone weary, and older than Ben's ever seen him. "He's less rock than spidersilk," Aunt River likes to say.

At any rate, Ben expected more yelling, not this heavy resignation. It occurs to him that he can't be the only one Mom tried to talk some sense into this evening.

"What I'm tryin' to get through your skull, Ben," Dad says, barely audible over the rain, "is that it ain't worth it."

"Reaver ships were caught on sensors not far out of Boros' orbit, they're gaining numbers every year, we _know_ they've got an eye on Eavesdown, and you're tellin' me it ain't worth it?"

That earns Ben another glare, the kind that chills. "Even if you were deployed to defend virgin Persephone's gorramn rolling plains—which ain't likely—what makes you think it's worth your life? Do you really wanna get cussed at, shipped out, and slaughtered like livestock? Kill crazy folk on the orders of other crazy folk?"

Maybe Dad thinks Ben has never thought of it that way before. He's wrong. "I'll do that, yes."

The fragrance of sodden earth rises around them while Dad stares at him and lets the words sink in. The back of Ben's shirt soaks through and starts sticking to him, thin and translucent as onion peel. He suspects he's just said something profoundly stupid.

"I wish you wouldn't," Dad says in the end, eyes elsewhere. Half his life he's been giving orders; requests are treacherous ground for him now.

"Well, I'm gonna."

And there's really nothing else to say about it now. Further argument would be repetitive, useless, and kind of annoying. So Dad just looks up, sad-eyed and backlit by lightning, and holds out the bottle of brandy. Ben accepts both the peace offering and the space on the swing next to him. They swing slowly and listen to the crescendo and decrescendo of rain slapping the roof. It feels like every other late summer evening. It feels like he's already gone.

"It's true, though," Dad says, unsmiling. "The uniform's a chick magnet."

Surprised into laughter, Ben has another pull at the brandy bottle. "That how you caught a Companion?"

"No, that's how I caught me an Amazon. Stuck to me like grease on Kaylee for ten gorramn years."

"Aunt Zoë's a chick?"

"Best not tell her I said so."

They sit for a long time, sometimes talking, sometimes not. Dad doesn't mention uniforms again, and Ben doesn't mention leaving in two days' time. The thunderstorm limps away, leaving a moonless black sky, and the brandy disappears between them.

At midnight the screen door squeals open and shut, and Mom pads barefoot across the damp wood. She's wrapped a red shawl over her plain blouse and pants, and, true to form, her hair has poofed voluminously.

"You cold, _bao bei_?" Dad says as she squishes in between him and Ben, tucking her feet up beneath her.

"Always, lately," she murmurs as his arm goes around her shoulder.

"We gettin' all mushy here?" Ben says, scooting to the far end of the swing.

Mom leans across the gap and kisses his cheek. "Never."

Miles away, the storm mutters and growls to itself. The porch swing creaks on its chains, and Ben feels foolish and frightened and utterly invincible. He'll worry on it in the morning.


End file.
